


Diving for Pearls

by verdictlesslife (Jaetion)



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Community: pyre_flies, Crush, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaetion/pseuds/verdictlesslife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rikku goes treasure hunting and just when she gets the find of the century, a certain totally mean, totally dumb someone lays claim to it.  Response to prompts from the LJ community pyre_flies (December 2007, December 2008).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 33) Exploration, 34) Fumbling/clumsy, 49) Sphere(s)

The campfire was cozy and all, but after about a gazillion years of watching Tidus and Yunie making googily eyes at each other and Wakka gaping at Lulu's ever-expanding boob-crevice of doom, Rikku's fingers itched for excitement and adventure and maybe a little gil. The sun was only just starting to set - hovering like a bloated Bomb on the horizon. Plenty of time to go exploring; she could go, kick ass, and come back before her time to take watch. The Macalania Woods were a veritable treasure chest!

There were only Auron and Kimahri to contend with, but she was certain she could out-wit both of them with her hands tied behind her back. If they noticed her escape (which they probably wouldn't, on account of her being awesome), she could pull out the old "girl business" excuse, the reliable get-out-of-jail-free card that was guaranteed to end any line of questioning. With another glance in their direction, Rikku slid backward into the forest, and when she was a decent distance away from the red warmth of the campfire, she skipped gleefully toward freedom. Ha! Once again, Al Bhed princess extraordinaire had vanquished her foes and conquered the day. And Brother had said that she was too green to go on a pilgrimage! Next time she saw him, she'd buy a hat, sprinkle the thing with pepper, and watch him eat ever scrap of it.

Lady Luck was at her side and Rikku slipped through the shadows undisturbed. A few time she got the flash of eyes in the growing shadows, but nothing lunged at her, and her recently polished claw and targe went un-splattered. She grinned as she slid down a small hill, strange silver-diamond dust of the forest rising in sparkling clouds of coolness rising behind her, and then jumped up with a twirl and thumbs up. She had seem something in the darkness, and since Lady Luck was practically in love with her, there was only one thing that _something_ could be.

A sphere!

The fuzzy, star-twinkle glow of it was only visible in her peripheral vision, but Rikku was sure - damn sure - that she'd seen a sphere. Years of training (years, months, a couple of hours until Pops got fed up, whatever) had sharpened her already amazing instincts, and she could practically feel its pulsating warmth, a little bit of fire in the shadows. The whispering memories trapped in the sphere called to the living, to _her_, desperate for recognition and release. She dropped to the ground, wiggling and slipping as her fingers searched through the splintered twigs, limp leaves, and rough stones until - "Ha!" The sphere reached back, tugging her hand closer, and finally the smooth warmth was in her palm. She exhaled a burning breath and then whooped as she squirmed backward out of the brush and back to the path. A sphere in the first five minutes! Could the day get any better?

"Rikku."

Rats. Rats and crap and _life sucked_.

It was amazing how much power one little word had. He could have stabbed her in the back with his overcompensation-sword-of-death and gotten the same reaction, which was entirely unfair, considering that she talked at him for hours and barely got him to blink. Damnation! Lady Luck had ditched her, dumped her on the side of the road, and it figured that _he_ would be the one to find her. Auron of all people, who was even worse that Kimahri when it came to conversation, which was saying a lot considering that Kimahri practically didn't even speak the same language as her. And she'd bet a thousand gil and Wakka's stupid blitzballs that he wasn't going to _talk_ as much as _scold_.

"What are you doing?"

From her not particularly comfortable seat on the ground, staring up at the tower known as Auron was practically giving her vertigo. For once he was given her all of his attention - All of his undivided, intense, extreme attention, which focused on her like a laser beam. Her cheeks were warming, heating up to the point of practically _melting_, and her brains boiled and fried along with them. "Nothing! So much nothing. So much nothing it's not even funny."

"Why did you leave the camp site?"

"Hey, you guys aren't my collective babysitters, you know. I come and I go like the wind in the trees and the wind in your pants and stuff. I am the wind. I'm like a little tornado of coolness. I rock like a hurricane. And, um, an earthquake."

"What is that?"

"What? What is what?" It wasn't fair, the way that he hypnotized her. She was practically on the verge of death now: her heart was small and tight and beating so fast that it whirred, her stomach had folded in on itself, and all the water in her body had decided to jump ship and make its escape through her palms. Crap! Crappy crap! She dropped her gaze from his face in a desperate attempt to regain some of her footing. "Um... this... stick? This stick here? This is a stick."

"In your hands. Give it to me."

"Um... um, girl business!" One eyebrow _maybe_ quirked a _little_, but that was all the reaction that her until that moment completely faithful, never-failed, tried and true, best excuse ever got. She could practically see the poor little excuse shrivel and die. Score one for the big guy.

Rikku heaved a sigh. It was over, completely and utterly over. She climbed her feet and dusted her silver-dusted butt off before taking a shaky step toward him. It was useless to resist, beating her head against the wall would be less painful and more rewarding, so she convinced her fingers to unclench and dropped the glowing sphere into his waiting hand. "It's not fair, you know," she grumbled at her feet. "I found this one all by my lonesome and that means it's totally mine, and I bet even Seymour would agree, even though probably in the next second he'd slit my gizzard and probably steal it because he's a bastard like that. Point is, no one appreciates spheres more than me, you dig? I don't even know _why_ I just gave it to you - It's like cutting off a leg and my nose and I like both of them where they are, thank you."

"This was probably left for Tidus."

"Yeah, well, Tidus is lame like three blown-out tires. Besides, you don't know that. Maybe my great-great-great grandma dropped it here after being chased by evil Yevonites, and it contains a password to a secret cave where a treasure of gil and kittens and X-potions await chosen one. And that's me, by the way. Tidus is a _pretty_ good princess, but I'd totally beat him in an awesome contest. He'd probably get the tiara tangled in his hair. Or die in a tragic accident involving blitzballs and unmentionable places."

He made a sort of grunt-snort, and when she looked toward him again, he was rolling the sphere around his big palm. The firelight of the sphere illuminated his hand, and she could see the snaking scars and calluses on his fingers. "You haven't watched it yet."

It was more a question than a statement, but Rikku humored him and replied with a nod. "I was totally going to, until a _certain someone who will remain nameless_ filched it."

The certain someone narrowed his eye at her, and again Rikku's stomach launched into an elaborate dance routine, complete with her liver doing the can-can as back-up. "You're a bigger thief than me, you know, and I'm not even talking about about your height, you massive mutant shoopuf."

He rubbed his chin, and a rush of triumph momentary quieted the weird flopping of her innards. "And you used intimidation, too," she added. She was winning against him for once and if she played her cards right, she could get Auron to buckle and release his prisoner. Maybe the fickle Lady Luck hadn't completely forgotten about her. "You're the legendary guardian of _larceny_. I bet this whole pilgrimage is just a cover for your career of crime and debauchery. You were probably scoping out the area for swag and loot and other synonyms when you stumbled upon me and the ill-gotten booty of the century."

He made another grunt-snort as he shook his head; he was probably wondering how to throw her off a cliff without Yuna noticing. She'd have to admit defeat. And then steal it back as soon as he fell asleep. "You _sure_ you don't want to renounce your life of depravity and give it back?"

The sphere rolled across his palm again before he closed his fingers over it. "Very well," he said, and then, as she started to do a celebratory jig complete with whoops and hollers and butt-shaking, added the fine-print, "We'll watch it first."

Close but no banana. Rikku's feet stopped in mid-pirouette, "Wait wait wait. We'll? Watch? First?" When his eye went back into piercing-soul mode, Rikku swallowed the rest of her complaints. He was giving a _little_; even though it was probably painful for him to admit how totally, utterly wrong he was, he was trying to make amends, in his stupid, stuffy, sexy way. Rikku nodded furiously, desperate to appease him and stop the chaos of improper thoughts that bounced around her skull. "Right, Boss," she said, and then before either of them could change their minds, snatched the sphere and grabbed his hand with her own and gave it a firm shake. "It's a deal and a date."


	2. 21) Watching, 84) Trust, 95) Secret(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written a year after the first chapter.

"You're really lucky I'm here," Rikku said as she peered into the swirling sphere. Auron's grunt told her exactly what his opinions on that were, and she looked up with a scowl. He might be able to scare Yunie with his impressions of constipated sandworms, but Rikku was cut from a different cloth. Like canvas to Yunie's silk. "In case you haven't noticed, this is a sphere."

"Somehow I noticed."

"Well, maybe you're not _completely_ hopeless after all," she said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, this sphere doesn't have a player attached. Did you notice that?" She folded her legs neatly under her and dropped to the ground; her goggles she secured around her eyes and her gloves she pulled tight. Right. "If you have the training and equipment to build an impromptu player for a moldy old sphere, then knock your big smelly socks off." She searched through her bag, and when her fingers found what she'd been looking for, she grinned in triumph. "Genius machina tinker Rikku once again saves the day. Here, check this out."

He bent down over her outstretched hand to examine the ring of gold that she displayed. Even with her goggles tinting everything turquoise, she could see his face clearer than ever before. The butterflies in her stomach bounced off the walls as she studied him. He hadn't changed, not really, from the young man they all ogled at in Tidus' spheres. If he smiled once in a while, he'd probably turn their group into his own private harem.

He frowned again, thankfully not turning suddenly clairvoyant. And clearly not comprehending the magnitude of awesome. "Well?"

"Stole this baby from the theater in Luca last time I was there," she chirped back with a wink. "Er, I mean _totally and legally found_. So I don't need to build a new player," she added hurriedly, lest he decide to march her back to the city to give the player back. "This player's meant for a music sphere, but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt. Give me a few minutes and we'll crack this thing open."

She unclipped the bag from her belt and dumped its contents onto the ground. Once she had the right tools, she pulled the ring open, exposing the glittering innards. The gears inside would have to be re-arranged a bit, maybe a few removed, but all in all, modifying the player was a piece of cake with strawberries on top. She'd only just started adjusting the magnifier when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She shivered a bit, and when she was sure that her cheeks had faded from tomato-red to a less embarrassing shade, she looked up. "What?"

"What?"

"You're staring at me like I have a second head growing out of my shoulder blades, and while that sounds cool in theory, imagine what a pain in the neck it would be feeding it. Pain in the neck, get it?" She grinned at that, but he didn't seem particularly interesting in a discussion about extraneous pieces of anatomy.

Her smile didn't falter though, it just slid into slyness. He could deny it, but he couldn't hide it: he was _curious_. Who knew? Maybe he was the Legendary Guardian of Mechanics, too. He was puzzle, all right, this Auron of theirs. "Wanna watch a master at work? Here, I'll show you what I'm doing. Even a Yevonite like you will can understand."

She inched closer and put the open ring on a flat stone in front of them. He tucked his arms into his coat, rustling the sleeves as he settled down, but his dark eye was fixated on the player. "I know this kid back at Home who's a prodigy with spheres," she said absently as she fiddled with the gears. "He's too little now to do much, but I know that one day he'll be _amazing_. Just like me. Here, see this?"

He leaned down, close enough for her to see the stubble across his jaw, close enough that his breath ruffled her hair. "See what?"

"Huh? Oh, the ring is basically a magnifier. It's actually a fairly simple piece of machina. See this little doodad? If I switch some things around, it'll magnify the images in the sphere and not just the sounds. Sphere's are strange things, huh?" She added thoughtfully as she popped some springs out. "They've got so much in them. Like big oysters."

She ventured another look at him, her eyes lingering along the line of his throat while her heart, lungs, and stomach started a parade through her chest cavity and her banging knees provided the percussion. Damnation! He smelled like the few ocean storms that made it into the desert or maybe like a night when all her inventions worked perfectly.

Her fingers danced over the ring as she stared, pulling out and tucking pieces automatically, as efficient as a well-oiled machina. She wanted to figure him out too, to pull his secrets free as easily as she did a sphere's ring, to learn how he ended up with Jecht and Uncle Braska he got the scar and lost his eye and how all those things fit puzzle-piece together.

It didn't take long, just as she had promised, and when she snapped the ring around the sphere, it sprang to life, as if it had been waiting, just dying to show someone the memory it had swallowed. She cheered in triumph and yanked off her goggles before she placed it carefully on the ground and scooted away in search of a comfortable log on which to plant her butt. She hesitated as her heart tried its best to burst out of her chest cavity but then dropped onto a flat rock next to one of Auron's tree-long legs. She focused on the sphere instead of looking at him, but it was only blurs of green, green, and more green, and squinting her eyes did nothing to clarify.

"Think it's a dud?" she whispered, even though the sphere-movie was silent. She managed to glance up at the frowning Auron before inching away to prod the sphere carefully with a stick. "That sucks like Seymour's hairstyle! If it is busted, you can _totally_ give it to Tidus."

The greens finally sharpened into leaves - The sphere was being carried through the woods! Rikku leaned forward in anticipation, and from the corner of her eye, noticed a shift in Auron's position.

"Heh," snorted a male voice from the sphere.

Auron inhaled sharply, like he'd been kicked in the gut by someone with steel-tipped boots. Her gaze flicked up at him again and she leaned closer to make sure his heart wasn't in the process of exploding - Dragging his corpse back to camp was not a happy prospect.

The voice snorted again. "I knew it."

It had taken her a second of replaying the voice through her thoughts, but recognition struck like a lightning bolt from Brother: it was Jecht!

He definitely was walking through the woods. More like creeping actually; Jecht was carefully parting branches and stepping with infinite care, like he was walking on eggs. After a thousand years, he got to wherever he was going; he dropped down to his knees and held the sphere up to his face. "Found 'em," he said, then grinned wide and white. "Take a look at this!"

A blur again, then the sphere focused: someone was in the center of the little field, kicking furiously at something round.

"No way!" Rikku dared to breath, leaning forward so far that she had to grab Auron's knee to prevent herself from toppling onto her face. It couldn't be. It was as impossible to swallow as one of Tidus' dinners. "Is that?"

It was a hallucination - It had to be! But no, the red coat couldn't belong to anyone else, and when the sphere zoomed in, there was no mistaking the sour-milk expression. A younger Auron (clear, clean face with peach-pink lips and narrowed eyes - not that she noticed these sorts of thing, of course) grimaced and bent down to pick a blitzball up. He pushed his long ponytail impatiently from his face and stared at the ball, inspecting it's curves with obsessive care. After a deep grimace, he tossed it into the air, drew back one of his long legs, and kicked so hard at the ball that his leg practically blurred.

And missed.

And fell flat on his back.

Rikku clamped her hands over her mouth, but her laughter leaked out like air from a punctured tire. Jecht's booming laugh filled the sphere. "I knew it! I fucking knew it! I'm never gonna let you live this down!" He jumped up and ran, giving the sphere a mouthful of black pants. _Great_ job directing. When the sphere cleared, an even more piss-and-vinegar expression had settled on Auron's face. "Got any last words for the sphere, champ?"

Still on the ground, Auron waved half-heartedly at the hovering sphere and then squeezed his eyes closed. "I hate you, Jecht."

At that she dissolved completely into laughter and whacked him playfully on the back. "You can laugh," she said between gasping giggles. "Come on!" She grabbed a fistful of his coat to wipe her eyes and when they were clear of laugh-tears, a site as amazing as a sphere was there to greet her: Auron was smiling, one that practically creaked it was so un-used, but there it was, like sixteen rainbows and a room full of balloons and a lightning-bolt straight to the heart. There was a flash of white teeth between his lips, and then he chuckled and rose slowly to his feet while Rikku rolled on the ground and gasped like a fish on the bottom of a boat.

"I'd forgotten about that," he said as he reached for the sphere. He held it in his palm again, jiggling it slightly as if he were weighing it. "Jecht laughed for the rest of the night. He could infuriate me like no one else. He was..."

They both frowned. There were at least a thousand things she could say - should say - but Rikku stared at her dirty knees. Being fifteen was as tragic as drowning in a puddle. If she were Lulu, she'd have a dozen speeches and blitzball-sized boobs. "Bet he did things like make you rue the day you were born. Anyway, if Tidus is half the nut case that Jecht was, the pilgrimage was probably all fireworks and over-cooked beans. And that's good, too, because I bet your life was severely lacking in both those departments." She paused to catch the butterflies of thought. "A friend like a rash and and a cure all rolled up in one."

"A friend." He repeated the word slowly, letting it melt on his tongue like a good piece of Bevelle toffee.

"Must have sucked," she said, quietly, then waved both her hands frantically. "I mean, not just sucked. Because of course it did. I mean, it must have been like pulling out pyre flies and slicing each one in half. Must have been like swallowing broken glass."

"Yes."

"That's what it was like when Home... died."

"I know."

She jumped to her feet and tossed her goggles in the air. "Can't build a new Home out of tears, you know? And hey, you know - Hey, you've got us now, right? Lose two, get six. And since I'm Al Bhed, that counts more because I'm more amazing that the average bear. You should consider yourself blessed, you know. Not just anyone gets to share a camp with the wondrous Rikku."

"Here." He held out his hand, the sphere rolling in his palm. "Take it."

"But Tidus?" Her mouth was wide enough to swallow the whole damn ocean.

He ruffled his coat like a bird settling feathers. "He's not to see it," he said at last.

"Funny how things turn out, huh?" She leapt and did a neat twirl in the air as she cheered. Lady Luck had come back with a vengeance! "Lips are sealed," she agreed quickly as she tucked it away. She hopped to her feet, spun in a neat circle, and then winked one of her spiral eyes. "'Sides, I owe you a secret."

He turned, his coat billowing out dramatically behind him. If he had his own music sphere, it'd be the perfect time for it to swell - Probably some rocking piano, maybe a wailing guitar. The man was cool.

But he also was a terrible blitzball player.

Rikku spun her goggles around her finger, then took a few long strides to catch up with him. She slid her hand into his and squeezed his fingers, giving him a grin so bright it threatened to blind him completely. His glasses slipped down his nose, and his with the startled expression on his face, he looked as young as the Auron on the sphere.

Not too bad for a night's work.


End file.
